DC/DC converter powers 12V bus architectures

The devices are designed to operate in sealed enclosures where cooling is not based on conventional forced-air cooling and fans, but via passive cold-wall technology in applications such as power amplifiers and transceivers.

Optimised to comply with low height and low-thermal resistance building practices, the PKB4513PINBLC is suitable for a large range of applications and systems that use cold-wall cooling technology.

This is largely facilitated by its wide input voltage range of 35V to 60V, 2,250V DC input to output isolation, and its application-specific mechanical design where all the heat dissipating components are assembled on the top-side.

With this latter feature, the converter becomes a homogeneous component with the rest of circuitry, simplifying the thermal interconnection between heat dissipating components and the system cold-wall, without an additional baseplate.

The converter's low profile (8.73mm) makes it suitable for use in chassis with a 10mm inner height.

Avoiding adding a baseplate and matching customers' components height results in excellent homogeneity, simplify the assembling process and reducing cost while increasing reliability, according to Ericsson.

By reducing thermal resistance between dissipating components and the cooling plate, the module's performance is optimised, reducing component stress, resulting in a high MTBF of greater than 1.6 million hours.

The most important application areas for the PKB4153PINBLC are antennas and equipment such as power amplifiers, combiners, monitoring, local repeaters and other applications embedded in sealed enclosures that are cold-wall cooled.

Its 12V output voltage and tight regulation make the PKB4513PINBLC suitable for a large range of applications that employ a 12V intermediate bus architecture.

Exhibiting versatility, the converters are able to operate over a temperature range of -40 to 120C.

Output power is 45W, efficiency is 91.8 per cent and output current is 4A, all at maximum levels.

To save energy, a large number of outdoor applications are not using fans and forced-air cooling and instead, using cold-wall technology to drain inner dissipated power and heat to an external heatsink cooled by natural convection, or in some cases, water cooling.

Because cold-wall is a growing technology for other applications where forced-air cooling is gradually being replaced by water-cooling or natural convection, the demand for products such as PKB4513PINBLC is expanding to other segments such as servers, data-centres, routers and others in information and communication technologies that operate from 48V supplies.

By optimising from the beginning the layout and topology to accommodate the final product's cold-wall mounting technique, the PKB4513PINBLC results in a smaller and cheaper solution than conventional products, reducing cost while increasing reliability.

Combining an efficient powertrain with simplified topology and an optimised layout, the PKB4513PINBLC complements the large range of Ericsson Power Modules DC/DC converters that power intermediate bus architectures.

The converter now also enables cold-wall applications to benefit from the high flexibility offered by intermediate bus combined with high-efficient point-of-load technology.

The products are compatible with the relevant clauses and requirements of the RoHS directive 2002/95/EC and have a maximum concentration value of 0.1 per cent by weight in homogeneous materials for lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, PBB and PBDE and of 0.01 per cent by weight in homogeneous materials for cadmium.

Optimised to deliver high-performance levels in applications using cold-wall cooling methods, Ericsson's PKB4513PINBLC is suitable for mid-power radio applications.